The difficulty with voting with your wallet

On a youtube video about review bombing and how it was just about the only way for players to communicate displeasure with developers and publishers, another user talked about why companies did not want to tell about micro-transactions and other impopular elements of games. That it was naturally because just telling would show that we were being ripped off ("burned") and we should vote with our wallets and either not buy or if we already ahd, then stop playing and leave.
I made the following comment.

There is a problem with voting with your wallet. At least if you want another game in the series. There is no certainty that they will make another game in the series. Look at Mass Effect Andromeda. It didn't get good reviews and so didn't get good (enough) sales and now the series might be dead. So, sure it stops you from getting burned again, but it might not get you what you want. Not saying it isn't the best option, just that it might not be a good option.

The user replied that while this is a problem, what can you do as a consumer? If their next game of choice arrives with micro-transaction, they will just have to no buy it. And that in a capitalist world, the only way to show they publishers might be to let franchises die.
They concluded with telling me to feel free to explain to them why DLC and micro-transactions feel like such a ripoff, why a game like Fallout 76 selling for 60$ needs to charge 20$ for a single cosmetic item.

I'm not in any way a fan of overpriced micro-transactions. They argue that the whales keep the price down for the rest. Is this true? I do not know. I know i do not think they are not as bad as buying weapons and the like. (20$ is a rip-off however.)

Part of me wonders if what is needed is for players to do the market research for them. Or even further promise purchases if x, y, z is delivered. ("I promise to buy the game if it is delivered without micro-transactions and on steam."), the other part thinks even this is not something that would work.

You probably have a point in that series need to be allowed to die over including micro-transactions, but it might need to be basically the whole industry. PC, console and mobile.

And i think the last one is most important. Mobile games take less resources to create and is where micro-transactions seem most accepted. Where else would you accept buy more energy? (Or rather buying premium currency to buy energy.) And i don't doubt it leaves companies wondering "Why can't we have that?" And that is the problem, why shouldn't they? If a triple-A game on PC costs tens of millions to produce while a Mobile game costs hundreds of thousands (i can't imagine more), while reaping the profits of continuous micro-transactions, why should publishers want to sell Triple-A PC games without micro-transactions?

It kind of makes you wonder if micro-transaction-less games are the exception over time. When did arcades go out of style?

Life is strange and analytical timetravel

Bit late but i just got the game on sale.
The game is emotional but it mainly comes from two tragic sequences.
The sub-timeline of trying to save Chloes biological father and the ending.

i stumbled on a video on youtube for a happy ending to the game.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3kZ138J_1M

Someone commented that they didn't think this ending should be easy to get possibly require a second playthrough. and the videoposter agreed, saying one should have to 100% the game to get it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3kZ138J_1M&lc=Ugxg-ggqxfWrWAx1aW54AaABAg

I only kind of agree that it should be a second playthrough.
This is something that would be very difficult/expensive to achieve (as in develop) but what bothered me is Max never tries to find the limits of her power. (Granted, till the end she has no indication that there is any.)
In the timeline where she saves Chloes biological father, she tries it once and gives up. i was going "how about establishing some connection? trying to give herself something to act on to stop Chloes accident?"
She does have access to her 13 year old self. She could have made it an annual thing that she came back and stayed with the Price family around that date and that she takes a photo each year. Or for a lesser change that she at least called Chloe regularly (with a photo before each phonecall.)
Either of these would have allowed her to travel back and influence Chloe and try to avert her accident, with the old photo incase she needs to change more.
And at this point she has no idea that travelling too much is a bad idea.
In short, Max doesn't try to get it right.

And it is the same with the end and the tornado. How much is too much? Is she not able to time travel at all without causing it? Is she able to do it once in a while? Can she do it as much as she likes as long as the timeline stays about the same? Can she get away with a small tornado by just doing something like what is in this video?

Yes, Max is emotional at these points but emotional can drive you in different directions.

I guess my wish would be a third option at the end of the first playthrough where Max goes "No! i can fix this!" and that is the start of a second playthrough where the first choice is how Max tries to limit herself, "fewer changes or smaller changes? Maybe less frequent changes?" and if you fail you end up back at the tornado scene. Possibly with a smaller tornado.) Of course it would require the developers to allow there to be a happy(happier) ending.

If we want to lock it behind extra playthroughs, maybe each playthrough would only unlock a clue. "maybe if i do this....."

This is of course all beside the point of what the developers were going for but the sad endings stray very close to idiot-plotting, where characters have to idiotically not talk to each other for the plot to work.

Unless of course Max cannot time travel at all without causing the tornado at full size, which would be an easy choice for the developer but that developer choice tangents something that annoys me with Far Cry 5, "the best choice is not to play", that is, the best choice is to do nothing even though you can. And in Life is Strange it is even worse because they give you a power and then, in the end, tell you that it is something you shouldn't use. (At all if you sacrifice Chloe and anymore if you sacrifice Arcadia, unless you're willing to sacrifice more towns.)

Min/max and allround

When i play rpgs i tend to go for the consistant damage. I don't want extra critical chance unless i'm allowed to get it up to say 80 percent. I'd prefer to increase ny base damage by some percentage.

Also i enjoy skillbased levelling so i can be allround as opposed to the pseudo min-maxer they have planned out.
Partially this is because i do not enjoy consummables(potions), especially in a consistant world setting and so want som healing.
But no generally the developers balance by giving specific roles. Further they balance by putting limits on how far a skill can be taken.

It would be interesting with a rpg where one could continue to advance in a skill rather than having to replace it after a few levels.

New skills shouldn't entice with being stronger because the earlier ones stopped advancing, they should entice by being special in some way.

I'm not saying there shouldn't be benefits to specializing, especially in a group, but it shouldn't be enforced.

Rift soul system and rogues in general.

Rift gives the player a set of souls to chose from that can be combined in different ways. This lets the give partial customization where they linit the player with what each soul can do.

How could this be done in reverse?

The player chooses a type of attack (say charged bolt), element and effect? The game limits damage and such based on player level and player input on cost etc. (Hmm, elder scrolls? ).

Distinguish between charged and channeled. Charged spends a moment to gather energy then does a larger effect, channeled continously does a smaller effect. Wirh channeled it doesn't matter if you are interrupted because you don't loose anything. With charged you risk loosing that larger effect (or if dev is kind, you simply get a timepenalty).

Easy (well, easiest) to do for mages.

For rogues i am curious about tiered buildup / attackpatterns. You start with A which lets you do B which lets you do C or D. How many on lowest level? 3? How many tiers? How many different attacks?  Maybe have it that A also unlocks tier two of A? So the player can choose to go A-A2-A3 etc?  Or have A give an effect? That effect is needed for B but also enhances A to sort of A level 2? Say A enhances accuracy, B enhances speed, C enhances damage. So the player can choose to go for more and more accuracy (enhancing crit%) or switch between the three.

Rift soul system and rogues in general.

Rift gives the player a set of souls to chose from that can be combined in different ways. This lets the give partial customization where they linit the player with what each soul can do.

How could this be done in reverse?

The player chooses a type of attack (say charged bolt), element and effect? The game limits damage and such based on player level and player input on cost etc. (Hmm, elder scrolls? ).

Distinguish between charged and channeled. Charged spends a moment to gather energy then does a larger effect, channeled continously does a smaller effect. Wirh channeled it doesn't matter if you are interrupted because you don't loose anything. With charged you risk loosing that larger effect (or if dev is kind, you simply get a timepenalty).

Easy (well, easiest) to do for mages.

For rogues i am curious about tiered buildup / attackpatterns. You start with A which lets you do B which lets you do C or D. How many on lowest level? 3? How many tiers? How many different attacks?  Maybe have it that A also unlocks tier two of A? So the player can choose to go A-A2-A3 etc?  Or have A give an effect? That effect is needed for B but also enhances A to sort of A level 2? Say A enhances accuracy, B enhances speed, C enhances damage. So the player can choose to go for more and more accuracy (enhancing crit%) or switch between the three.

Limiting

A further advantage of limiting how many powers the user can have active (and further such neverwinter tier them) is that it makes the ones you do have more special.

It also gives an argument for the lowest tiet (spam tier) being continous. If it isn't you are just going to cast it again anyway.

Rotations

Been playing a "rogue" in swtor and as they give me more abilities i'm starting to realize that while i do enjoy rotations
1. It is not clear enough for me. I want it as 1-2-3-4. If i remember correctly age of conan dis this well.
2. I do not enjoy deep rotations. I want.me right hand on the mouse and me left hand stationary on left side of keyboard.

Also i do not enjoy having everything on cooldown. Especially global cooldown.
Neverwinter does this well. It lets you have 2 attacks that you can do constantly and those continue as long as the button is pressed rather than happening and then waiting for cooldown.
Then it gives you up to 4 special attacks that are on individual cooldowns along with two extra specials who share a chargeup.
Of course there are many to chose from but they have to be slotted into those slotts.

Edit: and the reason i like the neverwinter approach more is because it lets me feel i am doing something the whole time while letting me watch the world rather than having to watch the attacks the whole time.

Party-based gameplay and the thief/rogue

As far as i can tell the classic adventuring party comes from pen and paper games where it normally isn't just the DM/GM and a single player (i.e. only a single player character).
The presence of multiple players and player lead to several things and among them character based storylines and differentiated roles.

Those two things don't move well to single-character computer games. You have to cut back on some things.
For the character based storylines the cut-back is built in, there is only one character and even that one can't really have a background since it isn't fully created by the player. (There could be a set of backgrounds to chose from, but again those would only be chosen by the player, not created.)

The cutback on differentiated roles are also somewhat built in. In a party of six (the usual size for a party in computer games as far as i can tell) there might be 6 different classes including:
a rogue/thief (disarm traps and pick locks)
a priest/paladin (heal and cure diseases/curses)
a knight (negate and deal damage)
a barbarian (deal a lot of damage)

In a single character game you either have to let the character be able to do all these himself/herself at master level or force them to chose between things such as fighting better and being able to pick locks.

party based games might also have a larger group to chose from such as in Dragon Age where it story-wise is a party of a dozen individuals traveling together. The problem with this as far as i'm concerned is that you miss about half the interaction between characters. And this does not add replay-value, only annoyance value. Furthermore, why split the group up if there is only one thing being done at a time? (Not that such an easy solution as having there always be 2 things needing doing at the same time would fix it.)

Another problem with party-based games is that you have to switch characters when different challenges come up. To me this disrupts the gameplay, which should be avoided.

Classes and alignment

Most RPGs use classes of some sort to determine what skills a character has access to.
There is a roleplaying element to this as a knight is not suddenly going to start learning spells.
On the other hand a mage should not be learning new spells out in the wilderness for no reason at all. Of course this depends on how different a spell is, a mage with experience only from fire spells might have problems figuring out how to do a frost/ice spell on his own but may be able to figure out how to use fire in a new way on his own (especially if it goes from "fireball" to "bigger fireball").
Finding a scroll would be fine, but that is a limited way (in a game that is realistic about were and how often they can be found). Teachers would be less limited in what can be learned but they are limited in where the learning can take place.

Alignment was/is a system to determine how a character should act in the world and to a degree what classes the character has access to. This has a problem built in only if the DM/GM enforces staying in that alignment.
To make it more interesting alignment could be used to determine whether the character gets access to teachers that can teach him/her abilities.
Paladin would be a good example of how classes could be handled based on a dynamic alignment except for that a paladin who strays from the path of his god (such as lawful good maybe) would not have access to his faithbased abilities any longer. Perhaps knight would work better. Lawful knight if lawful and chaos/chaotic knight if chaotic.

Representation thru points

This post is a follow-up to Leveling and skillpoints & statpoints.

As i wrote in the earlier post points are used to simulate the abilities of the character.
This is needed for two reasons.

One is that the player can't perform the actions to determine whether the character suceeded because the abilities are to a great degree physical and/or impossible in our universe.
This type includes everything from swordfighting and damage to lock-picking and spell-casting.
Damage and lock-picking is extra noteworthy. Damage since there is multiple stats involved, not only is there usually one or more stats involved determining whether damage was done at all, but there is also hit-points that ensure that what would kill in real life does not in the game. But it works for both the opponent and the player so it is acceptable mostly.
Lockpicking is noteworthy because computer-games have started including a challenge that the player can do to determine whether the lock-picking succeeded (even tho it is easier then real lock-picking and may still include some stats to determine how difficult the challenge is).

The other reason is to automate parts of the game instead of letting the DM/GM determine everything as he wills. That may make it easier to control and guide the story and thus making that better but it also makes it less of a game and more an interactive story.
Pure statistical gameplay can however remove some of the fun and for some types of games it is not fitting (such as superhero games where it might be better that the hero can beat the odds). Therefore some games include mechanics to go around the stats but these are in the hands of the players, not in the hands of the DM/GM.

story-driven gameplay and linearity

Story-driven gameplay is a way to answer the question of why the players character is doing what he or she is doing.

Linearity is whether the games story goes from A to B to C or allows the player to decide what he or she wants the character to do next.

This can be done in 3 (or possibly more) ways:

• Standalone Actions where the actions don't really affect anything beyond whether for example a quest is done or not (which for quest-chains may affect whether the next quest becomes available but does nothing else).
  
• Boolean Actions where one action may preclude another for some reason (such as there not being enough time to do both).
• Order-Interactive Actions where the order of the actions affect each other (such as doing a quest for NPC A affects how NPC B treats you.
  

These types of actions are on two levels where Standalone actions are the lower, less complex level and Boolean Actions and order-Interactive Actions is on the higher, more complex level.

A game usually includes more then one type of actions. Most actions may be Standalone Actions while Boolean Actions and Order-Interactive Actions are fewer. This both allows a lower complexity for the game as a whole and allows for some interesting interactions where the player have to deal with the consequences of his or her choices.

Equipment

The concept of equipment is well-used concept in RPGs and to some extent FPS/Adventure games.

In RPGs equipments usually includes armor aswell as weapons while FPS games mostly focus on weapons and adventure games mostly on tools. Another difference is that FPS/Adventure games often lets you carry every weapon/tool you find while RPGs forces you to choose what weapons and armor you want to carry with you with different stats and each item having a certain weight.

Armor
For example leather armor may not protect you as much from damage but it is lighter and allow you to move more.
This difference may be theoretical or practical in-game. If it is practical there really is both advantages and disadvantages to the different armors but if it is theoretical it is mostly a way to justify stopping mages and rogues from wearing heavy armor and getting too much damage resistance with World of Warcraft being a good example of the later.

Armor is usually found as different parts named after the bodypart where it is worn with the most usual being:

• head
• chest
• legs
• hands
• feet

The parts can depending on setting usually be interchanged for parts of another type as long as the character can wear that type so it would be possible to wear a plate chestpiece and have the rest being cloth armor.

Weapons
Weapons somewhat naturally lend themselves to advantages and disadvantages.
some weapons allow you more range while others do more damage and/or a greater rate of attack.
Examples would be:
sword (melee) <--> bow (ranged) for medieval worlds
shotgun (short range, medium speed) <--> sub-machine gun ( short to medium range, fast speed) <--> sniper rifle (long range, low speed)


Tools
Tools can be anything from lockpicks/hacking programs to hammers to repair armor. It does usually not affect the stats of the character (except maybe by having a bit of weight) for more then the single task it was intended for (such as high quality lockpicks making it easier to pick locks).

Stats
As i said above equipment can have different stats and this includes changing the attributes of the characters (for example giving a certain amount of extra strength).
This is all but a standard as far as MMORPGs go and allow splitting equipment into different tiers where a later tier has greater stats then a earlier tier.

concepts in games: DC Universe Online (DCUO)

I have decided to accompany my posts about the concepts with a sort of review of some games where i use my list of concepts. Today i will look at DC Universe Online.

Single player or multiplayer: Mostly the game is multiplayer but like most MMOs the quests you get while leveling are mostly for a single player. I say mostly because there are some that require the help of other players.

• Storydriven: There is an overarching story to the game but it does not connect the quests together so i would not call DC Universe Online a storydriven game. The story is more frosting then cake.
  

• Affectable story: You cannot affect the in-game world in any way by your choices.
  

Roleplaying: The game is based on that each character is unique which should support roleplaying.

• Roleplaying singleplayer game endings: As the game is an MMO it does not have a set ending. Which fits well with the source material since comicbooks don't have a set ending either.
  

Levels and skills: There are 30 levels for each character to achieve and each level gives either a skillpoint or a statpoint. According to my definition of skillpoints both could be called skilllpoints but the game divides it up so powerpoints let you chose a specific superpower within your powerset (fire, ice, nature, magic, mental, gadgets) such as fireball (for fire heroes).

• Respeccing: Each powerset can be used as damagedealer (dps) or as one of tank (fire, ice), healer (nature, magic) or controller. This means that by moving skillpoints and powerpoints around a healer, tank or controller can become a damagedealer or the other way around. To be effective in the new role does however require that the character has gear suited for it.
  

Equipment: The game gives the users the usual MMORPG types of gear such as head, chest, legs, feet, hands, etc.

• Customization: the players can customize the appearance of their character by choosing appearance for different pieces of gear. This is done by the player unlocking styles for that gearslot which they can then apply at will.

Have i missed anything that should be on the list?
(yes i removed some things from the original list to make the "review" more smooth. the original list was a list of topics for different posts and so those things didnt make it strange even tho they were opposites.)

Leveling and skillpoints & statpoints

A widely used feature in games is leveling and skillpoints/statpoints. They are used to simulate that a game characters abilities have been improved from their experiences.

The amount of levels, skillpoints and statpoints can vary both in how many there are and how they are granted.

Statpoints are generally about physical or mental statistics such as intelligence which might make your spells more powerful or strength which might make you do more damage with melee weapons. Skills points can be either general such as skill with for example swords or specific where they let you learn a specific skill (such as a special attack with your weapon or a spell).

Levels when used are a determining factor and can grant skillpoints and statpoints and distribute them in one of several ways:

• Let the player distribute them as he or she wishes

• distribute them in a fixed way

• distribute them according to the players playstyle

• some combination of the above.

An example of the first category can be found in Planescape torment. The player might start the character out as a melee fighter but use statpoints he gained from fighting melee to increase the stat intelligence. The only thing keeping the player on a set path is the increasing diffulty of the enemies as he or she moves into new areas but moving into new areas can in some places be avoided which eliminates the issue. The game does not use skillpoints as such, the character can learn all skills/spells.

I have not encountered any game that distribute the skillpoints entirely fixedly, but as above there are games that do not use them. World of Warcraft does not for the first 10 levels, after which the character gets one at every other level untill 80 and then 1 per level till maximum at 85. The statpoints (intelligence, strength, etc) are however fixed according to class. The difference between two characters of the same class is thus determined by which skills they have chosen to have, which if the player is aiming for the highest damage per second, is minimal.

The, in my opinion, best game I have encountered that increases characters stats and skills according to the players playstyle is Dungeon Siege 1. There was 3 tiers to it. If a character was using a fireball spell, it would get better at the stats associated with magic, with fire spells in general and with that spell in particular. This is an interesting ability system that works well in a singleplayer setting but not in a multiplayer setting. The multiplayer setting has varying challenges that almost require that a character be able to fill multiple roles, something that goes against specialization. This brings about a need for respeccing which i will explore in a later post.

Finally the fourth caategory. As i mentioned above World of Warcraft distributes statpoints in a fixed way but lets the player distribute skillpoints. This makes the game a good example of the fourth category, hybrids.

Tomorrow i will write about another of the concepts.

concepts in games

I have long (for a certain value of long) held a lukewarm interest in the concepts in computer games.
I say lukewarm since i have not really done anything about it besides form opinions in my head.
Now i have however decided to air them out and review them by putting them in writing.

First i decided to write down the concepts. as many as i could think of.
When i did this i noticed what maybe should have been obvious; many of them interlink.
This complicated things since i had planned to examine a single concept per post.
I will make a try of it and see what happens however.

i will start today by listing the concepts i have thought of (this may be edited later as/if more concepts show up).

Single player

• Storydriven

• Affectable story

Multiplayer

• Respeccing

Roleplaying

• Roleplaying singleplayer game endings

Levels and skills

• Comes from pen and paper games, simulating things that couldn’t be done by the player

o How this has partially changed for modern singleplayer RPGS (lockpicking for example)

• Respeccing
  

Party/group

Equipment

• FPS

• RPG

• Customization

Tomorrow i will make a post about leveling, skillpoints and statpoints.